The CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (which cracks codes and listens to the telephone conversation of foreign leaders) unanimously agree: Russian trolls and Intelligence agents played a major role in subverting the 2016 Presidential election.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller III, assigned in May, 2017, to investigate charges of Russian interference, believes there was collusion. He has indicted or obtained guilty pleas from 34 people and three companies. And more are undoubtedly coming.

Robert Mueller

And about 58% of Americans believe that President Donald Trump has tried to obstruct the investigation.

Apparently, most Americans don’t like having their elections subverted by enemy nations.

Subverting the governments of other countries is a right that Americans have long reserved for themselves. Among those regimes that have been toppled:

Between 1898 and 1934, the United States repeatedly intervened with military force in Central Americaand the Caribbean.

Americans staged invasions of Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924 and 1925 to defend U.S. interests. These were defined as Standard Oil and the United Fruit Company.

The United States occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Its legacy was the imposition of the tyrannical Somoza family, which ruled from 1936 to 1979.

The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. American banks had lent money to Haiti and requested American government intervention.

In 1918, 13,000 American soldiers joined armies from Europe and Japan to overthrow the new Soviet government and restore the previous Czarist regime. By 1920, the invading forces proved unsuccessful and withdrew.

Allied troops parading in Vladivostok, 1918

From 1946 to 1949, the United States provided military, logistical and other aid to the Right-wing Chinese Nationalist Party of Chiang Kai-shek. Its opponent: Communist forces led by Mao Tse-Tung, who ultimately proved victorious.

In 1953, the Eisenhower administration ordered the CIA to overthrew the democratically-elected government of of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: Nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913. He was succeeded by Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.

Whereas Mossadeddgh had ruled as a constitutional monarch, Phlavi was a dictator who depended on United States government support to retain power until he was overthrown in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. His crime: Installing a series of reforms that expanded the right to vote, allowed workers to organize, legitimized political parties and allowed public debate. Most infuriating to American Right-wingers: His agrarian reform law, which expropriated parts of large land-holdings and redistributed them to agricultural laborers.

The United Fruit Company lobbied the United States government to overthrow him—and the CIA went into action. Arbenz was replaced by the first of a series of brutal Right-wing dictators.

From 1959 until 1963, the United States government was obsessed with overthrowing the revolutionary Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Although not democratically elected, Castro was wildly popular in Cuba for overthrowing the dictatorial Fulgencio Batista.

On April 17, 1961, over 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Cuban military forces crushed the invasion in three days.

Infuriated with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President John F. Kennedy authorized “Operation Mongoose” to remove Castro through sabotage and assassination. The CIA, wanting to please Kennedy, teamed up with the Mafia, which wanted to resurrect its casinos on the island.

Among the tactics used: Hiring Cuban gangsters to murder police officials and Soviet technicians; sabotaging mines; using biological and chemical warfare against the Cuban sugar industry. None of these proved successful in assassinating Castro nor overturning his regime.

Ernesto “Che” Guevera and Fidel Castro

In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende from being democratically elected as president of Chile. When that failed, he ordered the CIA to overthrow Allende. Allende’s crime: A series of liberal reforms, including nationalizing large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking).

In 1973, he was overthrown by Chilean army units and national police. He was followed by Right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who slaughtered 3,200 political dissidents, imprisoned 30,000 and forced another 200,000 Chileans into exile.

And how did Americans react to all these attempts—successful and unsuccessful—at regime change?

Americans generally assume their Presidents and Congress know best who is a “friend” and who is an “enemy.” America’s friends usually turn out to be Right-wing dictators like Chiang Kai-Shek, Fulgencio Batista, Augusto Pinochet and Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.

And its enemies often turn out to be liberal reformers like Augusto Sandino, Mohammad Mosaddegh and Salvador Allende.

Americans tend to favor intervention for the flimsiest of reasons. In 2003, President George W. Bush claimed Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, had plotted 9/11 with Osama bin Laden. There was absolutely no proof to substantiate this, yet Americans overwhelmingly supported Bush’s unprovoked invasion of Iraq.

But now the shoe is on the other foot.

Except for President Donald Trump and his fanatical supporters, Americans are furious that a foreign power has dared to install “regime change” on them.

Americans are now tasting the medicine they have dished out to so many other countries. And they find it as repugnant as those countries have found the American brand.

In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator.

“[They] allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….[They] followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content. They were his servile accomplices, his willing victims….

“If he answered their suppressed desires, it was not because he shared them, but because he could make use of them. He despised the German people, for they were merely the instruments of his will.”

On November 8, 2016, millions of ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans elected Donald Trump—a man reflecting their own hate and ignorance—to the Presidency.

Yet, in some ways, Americans had fewer excuses for turning to a Fascistic style of government than the Germans did.

Adolf Hitler, joined the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party in 1919—the year after World War 1 ended.

Adolf Hitler

In 1923, he staged a coup attempt in Bavaria—which was quickly and brutally put down by police. He was arrested and sentenced to less than a year in prison.

After that, Hitler decided that winning power through violence was no longer an option. He must win it through election—or appointment.

When the 1929 Depression struck Germany, the fortunes of Hitler’s Nazi party rose as the life savings of ordinary Germans fell. Streets echoed with bloody clashes between members of Hitler’s Nazi Stormtroopers and those of the German Communist Party.

Germans desperately looked for a leader—a Fuhrer—who could somehow deliver them from the threat of financial ruin and Communist takeover.

In early 1933, members of his own cabinet persuaded aging German president, Paul von Hindenburg, that only Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor could do this.

Paul von Hindenburg

Hindenburg was reluctant to do so. He considered Hitler a dangerous radical. But he let himself be convinced that he could “box in” and control Hitler by putting him in the Cabinet.

So, on January 30, 1933, Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor (the equivalent of Attorney General) of Germany.

On August 2, 1934, Hindenburg died. Hitler immediately assumed the titles—and duties—of the offices of Chancellor and President. His rise to total power was complete.

It had taken him 14 years to do so.

In 2015, Donald Trump declared his candidacy for President.

Now, consider this:

The country was technically at war in the Middle East—but the fate of the United States was not truly threatened, as it had been during the Civil War.

There was no draft; if you didn’t know someone in the military, you didn’t care about the casualties taking place.

Nor were these conflicts—in Iraq and Afghanistan—imposing domestic shortages on Americans, as World War II had.

Thanks to government loans from President Barack Obama, American capitalism had been saved from its own excesses during the George W. Bush administration.

Employment was up. CEOs were doing extremely well.

In contrast to the corruption that had plagued the administration of Ronald Reagan, whom Republicans idolize, there had been no such scandals during the Obama Presidency.

Nor had there been any large-scale terrorist attacks on American soil—as there had on 9/11 under President George W. Bush.

Yet—not 17 months after announcing his candidacy for President—enough Americans fervently embraced Donald Trump to give him the most powerful position in the country and the world.

Donald Trump

The message of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign had been one of hope: “Yes, We Can!”

That of Donald Trump’s campaign was one of hatred toward everyone who was not an avid Trump supporter: “No, You Can’t!”

Whites comprised the overwhelming majority of the audiences at Trump rallies. Not all were racists, but many of those who were advertised it on T-shirts: “MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN.”

Birthrates among non-whites were rising. By 2045, whites would make up less than 50 percent of the American population.

The 2008 election of the first black President had shocked whites. His 2012 re-election had deprived them of the hope that 2008 had been an accident.

Then came 2016—and the possibility that a black President might actually be followed by a woman: Hillary Clinton.

Since Trump became President, he has:

Fired an FBI director for investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.

The headline in the February 6, 2016 edition of The World Post read: “Geneva III: The Stillborn Conference and the Endemic Failure of the International Community.”

Then came the waterworks:

“While approaching the fifth anniversary of the Syrian civil war on March 15 — which claimed more than 300,000 lives, approximately 700,000 wounded, 4 million fled the country, and another 6 million displaced within Syria — the international community has failed to put an end to bloodshed in this war-torn country.”

The Syrian conflict began on March 15, 2011, triggered by protests demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights—which is safely located in Great Britain—the total number of dead is now more than 310,000.

And who does the Observatory—and The World Post-–blame for this Islamic self-slaughter?

The West, of course:

“The silence of the International community for the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Syria encourages the criminals to kill more and more Syrian people because they have not found anyone that deter them from continuing their crimes that cause to wound more than 1,500,000 people; some of them with permanent disabilities, make hundreds of thousands children without parents, displace more than half of Syrian people and destroy infrastructure, private and public properties.”

Got that? It’s the duty of non-Muslims to bring civilized behavior to Islamics.

And why are all these murderers eagerly slaughtering one another?

Because of a Muslim religious dispute that traces back to the fourth century.

Yes, it’s Sunni Muslims, who make up a majority of Islamics, versus Shiite Muslims, who comprise a minority.

Each group considers the other takfirs—that is, “apostates.” And, in Islam, being labeled an apostate can easily get you murdered.

On April 23, 2016, the United Nations estimated that 400,000 Syrians had died in the war.

There is, however, an optimistic way to view this conflict:

Put another way: 400,000 potential or actual Islamic terrorists will never pose a threat to the United States or Western Europe.

The United States cannot be held in any way responsible for it.

In fact, it’s in America’s best interests that this conflict last as long as possible and spread as widely as possible throughout the Islamic community.

Here are four reasons why:

First: In Syria, two of America’s most deadly enemies are waging war on each other.

Yes, it’s Hizbollah (Party of God) vs. Al-Qaeda (The Base).

Hizbollah is comprised of Shiite Muslims. A sworn enemy of Israel, it has kidnapped scores of Americans suicidal enough to visit Lebanon and truck-bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing 299 Americans.

Flag of Hizbollah

Al Qaeda—which gave us 9/11—is comprised of Sunni Muslims. It considers Shiites as heretics and seeks their extermination. It has attacked the mosques and gatherings of liberal Muslims, Suffis and other non-Sunnis. And despite the death of its creator, Osama bin Laden, in 2011, it still seeks to destroy the United States.

Flag of Al Qaeda

Second: Since 1979, Syria has been listed by the U.S. State Department as a sponsor of terrorism.

Among the terrorist groups it supports: Hizbollah and Hamas. For many years, Syria provided a safe-house in Damascus for Illich Ramirez Sanchez—the notorious international terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal.

Illich Ramirez Sanches “Carlos the Jackal”

Third: China and Russia are supporting the Assad dictatorship—and the brutalities it commits against its own citizens.

This reflects badly on them—not the United States. And any move by the United States to directly attack the Assad regime could ignite an all-out war with Russia and/or China.

What happens if Russian and American forces start trading salvos? Or if Russian President Vladimir Putin orders an attack on America’s ally, Israel, in return for America’s attack on Russia’s ally, Syria?

It was exactly that scenario—Great Powers going to war over conflicts between their small-state allies—that triggered World War I.

Fourth: While Islamic nations like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan wage war within their own borders, they will lack the resources—and incentive—to attack the United States.

Every dead Hizbollah and Al-Qaeda and ISIS member makes the United States that much safer. So does the death of every sympathizer of Hizbollah, Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

The peoples of the Middle East have long memories for those who commit brutalities against them. In their veins, the cult of the blood feud runs deep.

When Al-Qaeda blows up civilians in Beirut, their relatives will urge Hizbollah to take brutal revenge. And Hizbollah will do so. Similarly, when Hizbollah does, those who support Al-Qaeda will demand even more brutal reprisals against Hizbollah.

Al-Qaeda terrorists–now taking aim at Hezbollah terrorists

No American could instill such hatred in Al-Qaeda for Hizbollah—or vice versa. This is entirely a war of religious and sectarian hatred.

In fact, this conflict could easily become the Islamic equivalent of “the Hundred Years War” that raged from 1337 to 1453 between England and France.

This is an ideal time for the United States to pull the plug on its devil’s bargain relationship with Saudi Arabia.

Reason #1: The political assassination of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a key critic of Saudi King Mohammed bin Salman.

On October 2, Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to pick up a document allowing him to marry a Turkish woman. Video footage shows Khashoggi walking into the consulate; there is none of him leaving it.

He has not been seen since.

According to Turkish government officials:

Fifteen Saudi agents flew into Istanbul.

They waited for Khashoggi inside the consulate and murdered him within two hours of his arrival.

Trump claims America needs Saudi Arabia as a counter-weight to the growing regional influence of Iran. But Saudi Arabia was unable to defend itself against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1990, after the invasion and takeover of Kuwait.

This was, in fact, why Saudi-born Osama bin Laden decided to declare war on the United States.

He petitioned Saudi King Fahd bin Abdulazis al-Saud to let Saudis oppose any invasion by Iraq. He argued that “infidel” American soldiers stationed in the Kingdom would “pollute” Islam’s two great holy sites: Mecca and Medina.

Having fought against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s, bin Laden offered to help defend Saudi Arabia with his Arab legion.

The king refused—because he knew that, despite all the sophisticated military hardware he had bought from the United States, the Saudis were too militarily weak to resist an invasion.

Bin Laden left the country to wage fulltime war against the United States.

Osama bin Laden

Reason #3: Saudi Arabia is filled with Islamics who hate the United States as “the Great Satan.”

Fifteen of the 19 September 11, 2001 highjackers came from Saudi Arabia.

And Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Wahhabism, a radical brand of Islam dedicated to “purifying” the world of “unbelievers.”

Reason #4: The only reason the United States cares about Saudi Arabia is that it’s the second-largest oil-producing country (after Venezuela) n the world.

Yet oil consumption threatens the future of the world through global warming. And it keeps America tethered to a regime that is fundamentally unstable and hostile to the West.

Reason #5: The United States can end its dependence on Saudi oil by embarking on a crash program to develop alternatives to oil.

Had this happened during the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the United States would now be energy-independent. America has the technology to do so; it lacks only the will.

Reason #6: Once the United States no longer needs fossil fuels, it can quit financing Middle East dictatorships.

This will end spending billions of dollars every year to prop up dictatorial regimes like those in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt. America will no longer supply big-ticket military hardware (like fighter planes and missiles) to potentially hostile Islamic regimes.

Reason #7: By withdrawing from the Middle East, the United States can free itself of the burden of acting as Israel’s permanent bodyguard.

Millions of Americans believe they are morally obligated to defend Israel owing to the barbarism of the Holocaust. But America was never a party to this, and has nothing to atone for.

Yet, for decades, the United States has been repeatedly dragged into the never-ending religious conflicts between Israelis and Islamics. Since both sides believe they are doing “God’s will,” there can be no substantial compromise by either.

Reason #8: The United States and its European allies can defend themselves against Islamic terrorism by erecting a “Sand Curtain” around the Middle East.

For 44 years—1947 to 1991—the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a Cold War. Essentially, the United States drew a ring around the Soviet Union—including those nations its armies had seized following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.

The United States said, in effect: “We can’t liberate the countries you’re now occupying”—because that would have triggered a nuclear World War III. “But we won’t allow you to occupy and enslave any other countries. And if you try to do so, it will mean total war.”

America could withdraw all of its forces from the Middle East—but keep a good portion stationed in Europe.

It could then publicly announce: “From now on, you are the masters of your own destinies—so long as what you do affects only the Middle East.

“We recognize that barbarism and violence have always been a part of life in the Middle East. And we don’t expect this to change.

“We realize you will destroy as many of your own citizens as you can—because they’re Jewish or Christians, or because Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims hate each other.

“Just don’t threaten citizens living outside your territories. In short: Europe and the United States are strictly off-limits to you.

“And if you aim your aggression at either, we will consider this an act of war and use all the weapons at our disposal—including nuclear ones—to wipe you from the face of the Earth.“

Even While Barack Obama was a candidate for President, Republicans made clear their absolute opposition to giving all Americans access to healthcare.

A July 29, 2017 Newsweek article, “GOP Aims to Kill Obamacare Yet Again After Failing 70 Times,” states: “Newsweek has found at least 70 Republican-led attempts to repeal, modify or otherwise curb the Affordable Care Act [ACA] since its inception as law on March 23, 2010.”

This despite the fact that, on June 28, 2012, the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Act, otherwise known as Obamacare.

Barack Obama

Republicans expected June 28 to be their day. The day when the Court struck down the ACA. It would be a day to celebrate—and to revel in the sheer ecstasy of their hatred for the country’s first black President.

Yet when President Obama sought to provide full medical coverage for all Americans, regardless of wealth, that–-for the American Right–-was a crime beyond forgiveness.

As President Obama’s best-known achievement, its destruction by the Supreme Court would discredit the reputation of its creator. And this would arm Republicans with a potent election-time weapon for making Obama a one-term President.

Among those Right-wingers poised to celebrate on the morning of June 28 was Ohio Congresswoman Jean Schmidt.

Jean Schmidt

Wearing a white dress, she stood in front of the Supreme Court waiting to hear about the healthcare ruling–-when the joyful news came:

The Court had ruled the Act was not enforceable under the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution!

Although this was in fact true—and reported on CNN and Fox News—it was not the whole story. A cell phone camera-wielding onlooker spotted Schmidt on her own cell phone.

“Yes! Yes!” Schmidt screamed. “Oh, what else? Thank God! No, they struck down the individual mandate! They took it away! Yes!”

Her fascistic joy manifested itself in ear-splitting screeches and air punches. Her entire body rocked up and down, shuddering with the ecstasy of passion. She resembled, more than anything else, a woman caught up in the frenzy of an orgasm.In this case, an orgasm of pure, undisguised hatred–-

for the Affordable Healthcare Act;

for those millions of uninsured Americans needing healthcare coverage; and,

above all, for the President himself.

It was a lust so demonic, so characteristic of the all-out, lethal hatred that Republicans aim at Obama, that words alone cannot fully describe it. It had to be seen for its full, revolting quality to be felt.

The Court had ruled that the Act was Constitutional under the power of the Congress to levy taxes. Thus, the hated individual mandate—requiring the wealthy to buy insurance—was legal after all.

Republicans’ arguments have been couched in economic terms: It would “bankrupt” the country to provide poor and middle-class Americans with access to the same healthcare provided to the richest 1%.

The previous President, George W. Bush, had lied the nation into a needless and destructive war with Iraq by repeatedly claiming that:

Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden had teamed up to bring on 9/11;

Saddam was going to get a nuclear weapon; or

Saddam already had a nuclear weapon and intended to use it against the United States.

That war cost the lives of 4,486 Americans and well over $1 trillion.

George W. Bush

And Bush—taking a “hands-off-business” attitude—had presided over the 2008 Wall Street “meltdown.” By the time Obama took office in 2009, the unchecked greed and stupidity of wealthy businessmen threatened to bankrupt the country.

But for the American Right, these weren’t crimes. They were simply incidents to be ignored or arrogantly explained away.

And there was always the predictable rants about the dangers of “socialized medicine.” (The fact that countries like France and Britain have had “socialized medicine” for decades and are still solvent and powerful has no meaning for these ideologues.)

Not every Republican is a certified member of the Ku Klux Klan or American Nazi Party. nevertheless, it’s the racist and totalitarian ideology of these groups which now guides the leadership of this party.

There are three major reasons for Republicans’ vicious opposition to the Affordable Care Act:

It was backed by and implemented under a black President;

Republicans want to placate their “campaign contributors” (i.e., bribers) in the insurance and medical industries; and

By making healthcare unavailable to millions of poor and middle-class Americans, they expect to kill off, by illness and disability, millions of people they despise and consider disposable.

This last goal dovetails nicely with Republicans’ all-out assault on Social Security, Medicare and social services programs. By eliminating these social safety nets, Republicans intend to deprive their recipients of access to food, clothing and shelter.

If this seems outrageous, consider this:

During its invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II, the Wehrmacht caused the deaths of millions of captured Russians without firing a shot. They did so simply by fencing them out in the cold without medical care or food.

What Ronald Reagan once said about the leadership of the Soviet Union now applies to the leadership of his own party: “The only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat.”

Fast forward to January 28, 2017, the day after President Donald J. Trump signed into law an executive order which:

Suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days;

Barred Syrian refugees indefinitely;, and

Blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The new rules—and the efforts of security personnel at major international airports to enforce them—triggered a tsunami of chaos and fear among travelers.

“We’ve gotten reports of people being detained all over the country,” said Becca Heller, the director of the International Refugee Assistance Project. “They’re literally pouring in by the minute.”

Refugees on flights when the order was signed on January 27 were detained upon arrival.

Many students attending American universities were blocked from returning to the United States from visits abroad.

According to Homeland Security officials:

109 people who were already in transit to the United States when the order was signed were denied access;

173 were stopped before boarding planes heading to America;

81 who were stopped were eventually given waivers to enter the United States.

Internationally, travelers were seized by panic when they were not allowed to board flights to the United States. In Dubai and Istanbul, airport and immigration officials turned passengers away at boarding gates. At least one family was removed from a flight it had boarded.

Earlier on January 28, Trump, isolated in the White House from all the chaos he had unleashed in airports across the nation and throughout the world, said:

“It’s not a Muslim ban, but we were totally prepared. It’s working out very nicely. You see it at the airports, you see it all over.”

Then the American Civil Liberties Union intervened.

Two Iraqi immigrants, defended by the ACLU, accused Trump of legal and constitutional overreach.

The Iraqis had been detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. One had served as an interpreter for American forces in Iraq for a decade. The other was en route to reunite with his wife and son in Texas.

The interpreter, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, was released after nearly 19 hours of detention. So was the other traveler, Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi.

Before the two men were released, one of their lawyers, Mark Doss, a supervising attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, asked an official, “Who is the person we need to talk to?”

“Call Mr. Trump,” said the official, who refused to identify himself.

He might just as well have said: “You want to protest? Tell the Fuhrer.”

The ACLU action secured at least a temporary blocking of part of Trump’s order. A Brooklyn judge barred the government from deporting some arrivals who found themselves ensnared by the Presidential order.

Judge Ann M. Donnelly, of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, ruled that sending the travelers home could cause them “irreparable harm.” She said the government was “enjoined and restrained from, in any manner and by any means, removing individuals” who had arrived in the United States with valid visas or refugee status.

But she didn’t force the administration to let in people otherwise blocked by the executive order who have not yet traveled to the United States. Nor did she issue a broader ruling on the constitutionality of the order.

* * * * *

On November 8, 2016, millions of ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans elected Donald Trump—a man reflecting their own hate and ignorance—to the Presidency.

Summing up Trump’s character in a March 25, 2016 broadcast of The PBS Newshour, conservative political columnist David Brooks warned: “The odd thing about [Trump’s] whole career and his whole language, his whole world view is there is no room for love in it. You get a sense of a man who received no love, can give no love….

“And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the authoritarian personality.”

There were countless warning signs available for Trump’s supporters to see—if they had wanted to see them:

His threats against his political opponents;

His five-year “birtherism” slander against President Obama—which even he was forced to disavow;

His rampant egomania;

His attacks on everyone who dared to disagree with him;

His refusal to release his tax returns;

His history of bankruptcies and lawsuits filed against him;

His bragging about sexually abusing women (“Grab them by the pussy”).

Those who voted against Trump are now learning the meaning of the Nazi slogan: “The Fuhrer proposes and disposes for all.”

In 1997, Prince created Blackwater, a private security company providing support to military and police agencies.

In August, 2003, Blackwater got the first of a series of Federal contracts to deploy its forces in Iraq. For $21 million, it would safeguard Paul Bremer, the proconsul running the American occupation in Iraq.

Ultimately, Blackwater got $1 billion to provide security for American officials and soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to human rights organizations, Blackwater abused Iraqis and engaged in torture to obtain information.

Five guards were charged with murder. Three were convicted in October, 2014, of 14 manslaughter charges and in April 2015 sentenced to 30 years in prison. These sentences were deemed unfair upon appeal and await re-sentencing.

As a result of its highly controversial activities in Iraq, Prince renamed the company Xe Services in 2009 and then Academi in 2011.

Now, against opposition by the Pentagon, Prince is pressing Trump to let Academi privatize the war in Afghanistan.

Since the end of the Cold War, the American military and Intelligence communities have grown increasingly dependent on private contractors.

In his 2007 bestseller, Legacy of Ashes:The History of the CIA, Tim Weiner writes:

“Patriotism for profit became a $50-billion-a-year business….The [CIA] began contracting out thousands of jobs to fill the perceived void by the budget cuts that began in 1992.

“A CIA officer could file his retirement papers, turn in his blue identification badge, go to work for a much better salary at a military contractor such as Lockheed Martin or Booz Allen Hamilton, then return to the CIA the next day, wearing a green badge….”

Much of the CIA became totally dependent on mercenaries. They appeared to work for the agency, but their loyalty was actually to their private–and higher-paying—companies.

Writes Weiner: “Legions of CIA veterans quit their posts to sell their services to the agency by writing analyses, creating cover for overseas officers, setting up communications networks, and running clandestine operations.”

One such company was Total Intelligence Solutions, founded in 2007 by Cofer Black, who had been the chief of the CIA’s counter-terrorism center on 9/11. His partners were Robert Richer, formerly the associate deputy director of operations at the CIA, and Enrique Prado, who had been Black’s chief of counter-terror operations at the agency.

Future CIA hires followed suit: Serve for five years, win that prized CIA “credential” and sign up with a private security company to enrich themselves.

This situation met with full support from Right-wing “pro-business” members of Congress and President George W. Bush.

They had long championed the private sector as inherently superior to the public one. And they saw no danger that a man dedicated to enriching himself might put greed ahead of safeguarding his country.

But there are dangers to hiring men whose first love is profit. Recent examples include:

Edward Snowden deliberately joined Booz Allen Hamilton to secure a job as a computer systems administrator at the National Security Agency (NSA). This gave him access to thousands of highly classified documents—which, in 2013, he began publicly leaking to a wide range of news organizations.

His motive, he has claimed, was to warn Americans of the privacy-invading dangers posed by their own Intelligence agencies.

On March 7, 2017, WikiLeaks published a “data dump” of 8,761 documents codenamed “Vault 7.”

The documents exposed that the CIA had found security flaws in software operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, Android and Apple iOS. These allowed an intruder—such as the CIA—to seize control of a computer or smartphone. The owner could then be photographed through his iPhone camera and have his text messages intercepted.

According to anonymous U.S. Intelligence and law enforcement sources, the culprits were CIA contract employees.

But there are those who have offered a timely warning against the use of mercenaries. One of these is Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman of the Renaissance.

Niccolo Machiavelli

In The Prince, Machiavelli writes:

“Mercenaries…are useless and dangerous. And if a prince holds on to his state by means of mercenary armies, he will never be stable or secure. For they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, disloyal. They are brave among friends; among enemies they are cowards.

“They have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to man, and destruction is deferred only as the attack is. For in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.

“The cause of this is that they have no love or other motive to keep them in the field beyond a trifling wage, which is not enough to make them ready to die for you.”

Centuries after Machiavelli’s warning, Americans are realizing the bitter truth of it firsthand.

“Get us a group of 20 homeless people that we could train, help them understand how the shotgun works, how to maintain it, how to fire it,” Ellison told Newsweek. “And equip them with a shotgun, a sling and some shells so they can protect themselves.”

Brian Ellison

Actually, the shotgun was not Ellison’s first choice of weaponry for his intended beneficiaries.

“Frankly I think the ideal weapon would be a pistol,” he told The Guardian, “but due to the licensing requirements in the state we’re going to have a hard enough time getting homeless people shotguns as it is.

“Getting them pistols is probably next to impossible. The pistols need to be registered, people have to have addresses.”

But “open-carrying a long gun is completely legal. So we thought that pump-action shotguns were a suitable alternative to a pistol.”

Winchester Model 1912-gauge pump-action shotgun

Ellison is a Libertarian. He’s also a former Army soldier who served in Iraq.

Apparently that experience didn’t teach him that when too many people have guns, no one is safe.

Ellison’s opponent is Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow.

Besides providing shotguns to thousands of rootless people, Ellison wants to abolish the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Transportation Security Administration, and localize the Department of Education.

“I’m basically entirely opposed to any government program,” said Ellison.

Unless it’s a government program to arm bums with guns.

This population can be roughly divided into four categories:

Druggies

Drunks

Mental cases and

Bums.

The homeless are “constantly victims of violent crime,” says Ellison, who believes that giving them firearms would provide a deterrent.

It would also provide a real incentive for tax-paying citizens to hand over their money the moment a shotgun-carrying DDMB confronts them on the street.

Of course, Ellison has an answer for this: He would try to “pre-qualify” DDMBs as suitable candidates to own firearms:

“The first thing that we’re gonna do is ask them if they think this is something that would benefit them. We’re certainly not trying to force anything on anybody.”

Except, of course, on those citizens being hit on daily—sometimes hourly—by DDMBs for money.

Naturally, ammunition would be provided—at state expense—for the shotguns. This would come in five- or six-shell magazines.

Ellison said that more shells would be provided if the owners legitimately used their guns to defend themselves.

But if they used their ammo for “shooting cans in somebody’s private property” then they would not be given more shells.

A potential beneficiary of Ellison’s “guns for bums” program

Ellison isn’t worried that is intended beneficiaries might use the guns for murder or robbery: “Well, are you worried about the police being armed with military weapons? I am.

“The world we live in is a scary world, where the police who used to dress in short-sleeved shirts and carry a revolver now have long rifles with scopes and bulletproof vests and armoured vehicles.

“And quite frankly that scares me much more than a homeless person trying to defend themselves with a shotgun.”

This, of course, ignores the fact that police are pre-qualified with firearms—and every shooting by officers in a big-city police department is thoroughly investigated.

Their firearms are turned in for investigation. And the officers who used them can be disciplined and even prosecuted if a police chief and/or prosecutor believes the shooting was improper or illegal.

And who would make such lethal weaponry available to street people?

“There are a lot of charities out there that help to provide the homeless with food, housing, job training, all kinds of stuff,” said Ellison. “There’s not a charity out there that helps them learn how to protect themselves. What’s going to drive this is popular support.”

Just how many DDMBs could receive Ellison’s special gift? In Michigan, there are more than 56,000 of them.

Ellison remarked that the population is “constantly victims of violent crime” in his state.

His website page opens with: “LIBERTARIANISM MEANS ALL OF YOUR FREEDOMS ALL OF THE TIME.” And it outlines his core beliefs:

“We as a people must admit that the many laws, regulations, and policies established over the years in an effort to ‘promote social welfare’ have failed in their stated purpose. These laws and regulations now represent the greatest threat to our natural rights, and must be repealed.

“Abroad, we must change how we engage the rest of the world, leading by example, not force of arms….Imperialism was not the intent of our founders nor is it the desire of the majority of Americans.”

“In order to move forward in these beliefs,” says his website, “we must remember that while our ideology is our core, we must also be practical and reasonable in their implementation.”

Yet many voters may well decide that arming bums with guns isn’t “practical and reasonable.”

According to the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (which cracks codes and listens to the telephone conversation of foreign leaders) it’s clear that Russian trolls and Intelligence agents played a major role in subverting the 2016 Presidential election.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller III, assigned in May, 2017, to investigate charges of Russian interference, believes there was collusion. He has secured criminal charges against 19 people, including five guilty pleas. And more are undoubtedly coming.

Robert Mueller

And 65% of Americans believe that Mueller should be allowed to continue his investigation.

Apparently, most Americans don’t like having their elections subverted by enemy nations.

Subverting the governments of other countries is a right that Americans have long reserved for themselves. Among those regimes that have been toppled:

Between 1898 and 1934, the United States repeatedly intervened with military force in Central Americaand the Caribbean.

Americans staged invasions of Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924 and 1925 to defend U.S. interests. These were defined as Standard Oil and the United Fruit Company.

The United States occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Its legacy was the imposition of the tyrannical Somoza family, which ruled from 1936 to 1979.

The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. American banks had lent money to Haiti and requested American government intervention.

In 1918, 13,000 American soldiers joined armies from Europe and Japan to overthrow the new Soviet government and restore the previous Tsarist regime. By 1920, the invading forces proved unsuccessful and withdrew.

Allied troops parading in Vladivostok, 1918

From 1946 to 1949, the United States provided military, logistical and other aid to the Right-wing Chinese Nationalist Party of Chiang Kai-shek. Its opponent were Communist forces led by Mao Tse-Tung, who ultimately proved victorious.

In 1953, the Eisenhower administration ordered the CIA to overthrew the democratically-elected government of of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: Nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913. He was succeeded by Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi. Whereas Mossadeddgh had ruled as a constitutional monarch, Phlavi was a dictator who depended on United States government support to retain power until he was overthrown in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. His crime: Installing a series of reforms that expanded the right to vote, allowed workers to organize, legitimized political parties and allowed public debate. Most infuriating to American Right-wingers: His agrarian reform law, which expropriated parts of large land-holdings and redistributed them to agricultural laborers. The United Fruit Company lobbied the United States government to overthrow him—and the CIA went into action. Arbenz was replaced by the first of a series of brutal Right-wing dictators.

From 1959 until 1963, the United States government was obsessed with overthrowing the revolutionary Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Although not democratically elected, Castro was wildly popular in Cuba for overthrowing the dictatorial Fulgencio Batista. On April 17, 1961, over 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Cuban military forces crushed the invasion in three days.

Infuriated with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President John F. Kennedy authorized “Operation Mongoose” to remove Castro through sabotage and assassination. The CIA, wanting to please Kennedy, teamed up with the Mafia, which wanted to resurrect its casinos on the island. Among the tactics used: Hiring Cuban gangsters to murder police officials and Soviet technicians; sabotaging mines; using biological and chemical warfare against the Cuban sugar industry. None of these proved successful in assassinating Castro nor overturning his regime.

Ernesto “Che” Guevera and Fidel Castro

In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende from being democratically elected as president of Chile. When that failed, he ordered the CIA to overthrow Allende. Allende’s crime: A series of liberal reforms, including nationalizing large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking. In 1973, he was overthrown by Chilean army units and national police. He was followed by Right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who slaughtered 3,200 political dissidents, imprisoned 30,000 and forced another 200,000 Chileans into exile.

And how did Americans react to all these attempts—successful and unsuccessful—at regime change?

Americans generally assume their Presidents and Congress know best who is a “friend” and who is an “enemy.” America’s friends often turn out, for the most part, to be Right-wing dictators like Chiang Kai-Shek, Fulgencio Batista, Augusto Pinochet and Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.

And its enemies often turn out to be liberal reformers like Augusto Sandino, Mohammad Mosaddegh and Salvador Allende.

Americans tend to favor intervention for the flimsiest of reasons. In 2003, President George W. Bush claimed Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, had plotted 9/11 with Osama bin Laden. There was absolutely no proof to substantiate this, yet Americans overwhelmingly supported Bush’s unprovoked invasion of Iraq.

But now the shoe is on the other foot. Except for President Donald Trump and his fanatical supporters, Americans are furious that a foreign power has dared to install “regime change” on them.

Americans are now tasting the medicine they have dished out to so many other countries. And they find it as repugnant as those countries have found the American brand.

By February, 1943, the tide of war had turned irrevocably for Nazi Germany.

The string of quick and easy victories that had started on September 1, 1939 was over:

Poland

Norway

Denmark

Holland

Belgium

Luxembourg

Greece

France.

All had fallen under the heel of the Nazi jackboot. The swastika flag still flew triumphantly over the capitols of these once-free nations.

And the word—and whim—of Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler remained law for their populations.

But by March, 1943, all except the most fanatical Nazis could see that Germany was on a collision course with disaster.

Under the unshakable leadership of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Great Britain still remained a sworn enemy of the Third Reich.

After six months of spectacular victories against the Soviet Union, the Wehrmacht had become hopelessly bogged down in the snow before Moscow.

On December 11, 1941, following the attack on Pearl Harbor by his ally, Japan, Hitler declared war on the United States—thus pitting the Reich against the world’s two most powerful nations: America and Russia.

In November, 1942, at El Alamein, the British Army halted the advance of General Erwin Rommel and his famed Afrika Korps across North Africa.

On February 2, 1943, General Friedrich von Paulus surrendered the remains of the once-powerful Sixth Army at Stalingrad. The Reich suffered 730,000 total casualties, including nearly 91,000 German prisoners taken prisoner.

On June 6, 1944, American, British and Canadian armies overwhelmed German’s “impregnable wall of death” on the Normandy beaches.

In February, 1945, following the Vistula-Oder Offensive, the Red Army temporarily halted 37 miles east of Berlin.

So, by March, 1943, Germany desperately needed to hear some good news. And Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels was eager to supply it.

Joseph Goebbels

He did so in one of his last public addresses, delivered to a large but carefully selected audience in Gorlitz.

For Goebbels, the greatest challenge to the Reich lay in “the Bolshevist danger in the East.” And, for him, the solution was clear: “Total war is the demand of the hour.”

“Our soldiers, as soon as the great push on the Eastern Front gets under way, will ask no mercy and give no mercy.

“Already, our forces have begun softening up operations, and in the next weeks and months the big offensive will begin. They will go into battle with devotion like congregations going to a religious service.

“And when our men shoulder their weapons and climb into their tanks, there will be before their eyes the sight of their violated women and murdered children. A cry of vengeance will rise from their throats that will make the enemy tremble with fear!

“So, as the Fuhrer has overcome crises in the past, so will he triumph now.

“The other day he told me ‘I firmly believe that we shall overcome this crisis. I firmly believe that our army of millions will beat back our enemy and annihilate him. And some day our banners will be victorious. This is my life’s unshakable belief.’”

Thunderous applause repeatedly interrupted Goebbels’ address. Yet this could not replace the enormous losses Germany had suffered since 1939. Nor could it reverse the march of the Allied armies as they closed in on the Reich from East and West.

Now, fast-forward 74 years to November 23, 2017—Thanksgiving Day.

Donald Trump, President of the United States, speaks by video teleconference to American forces stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Donald Trump

President George W. Bus had flown into Baghdad in 2003 to spend Thanksgiving with American forces. He flew into Iraq once again to visit troops in June, 2006.

And President Barack Obama visited American soldiers in Iraq in 2009, in Afghanistan in 2010, 2012 and 2014.

Trump’s “visit” was unique—in that he addressed American troops from his Mar-a-Lago Club and Resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

The address started off predictably enough: “It’s an honor to speak with you all and to give God thanks for the blessings of freedom and for the heroes who really have this tremendous courage that you do to defend us and to defend freedom.”

But, being Trump, he could not resist paying homage to himself: “We’re being talked about again as an armed forces. We’re really winning. We know how to win, but we have to let you win. They weren’t letting you win before; they we’re letting you play even. We’re letting you win….

“They say we’ve made more progress against ISIS than they did in years of the previous administration, and that’s because I’m letting you do your job….”

In short: All those sacrifices you made under Presidents Bush and Obama went for nothing.

“A lot of things have happened with our country over the last very short period of time, and they’re really good—they’re really good. I especially like saying that companies are starting to come back.

“Now we’re working on tax cuts—big, fat, beautiful tax cuts. And hopefully we’ll get that and then you’re going to really see things happen.”

Or, put another way: Be grateful they elected me—because you’re about to see the 1% richest get even richer. Too bad you won’t be so lucky.

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